´¯`•. June 15, 2017

JERUSALEM!!!

Big news, the past week…! When Trump said he was moving Israel’s capital to Jerusalem, where it belongs, all of Israel held its collective breath. I was skeptical, at best. Hopeful, but skeptical. But things looked good – Trump’s administration gave a blistering speech at the UN about how they put so much time into bashing Israel while NOT paying attention to real, actual threats in the world. And I was impressed.

But then it was announced that moving Israel’s capital to Jerusalem had to be ‘put off’ indefinitely, because of peace processes with the Palestinians. Not to mention every Muslim in the world would crap bricks. Mecca isn’t enough – they have to take Jerusalem, too. It’s been this way for decades, the war over Jerusalem.

The United States is expected to signal on Tuesday that it might withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council unless reforms are ushered in including the removal of what it sees as an “anti-Israel bias”, diplomats and activists said. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, who holds cabinet rank in President Donald Trump’s administration, said last week Washington would decide on whether to withdraw from the Council after its three-week session in Geneva ends this month.

…The Council’s critical stance of Israel has been a major sticking point for its ally the United States.Washington boycotted the body for three years under President George W. Bushbefore rejoining under Barack Obama in 2009. Haley, writing in the Washington Post at the weekend, called for the Council to “end its practice of wrongly singling out Israel for criticism.”

The Council has no powers other than to rebuke governments it deems as violating human rights and to order investigations but plays an important role in international diplomacy. …Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory are a fixed item on the agenda of the 47-member body set up in 2006. Washington, Israel’s main ally, often casts the only vote against the Arab-led resolutions.

“When the council passes more than 70 resolutions against Israel, a country with a strong human rights record, and just seven resolutions against Iran, a country with an abysmal human rights record, you know something is seriously wrong,” wrote Haley.

“It is an anomaly that there is a dedicated agenda item in a way that there isn’t for North Korea or Syria or anything else…”

By a vote of 90-0,Senate passes resolution reaffirming that Jerusalem is Israel’s undivided capital.The Senate on Monday unanimously passed a resolution marking the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Day War. The resolution… calls on President Donald Trump to “abide by” a 1995 law which stipulates that the U.S. Embassy in Israel would move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It says that “Jerusalem should remain the undivided capital of Israel in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected.” It adds that “Jerusalem is a holy city and the home for people of the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths” and advocates a two-state outcome based on direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs.

The 1995 law called for the President to move the embassy to Jerusalem by May 31, 1999, or else issue a waiver every six months delaying the move. Trump, who promised to move the embassy to Jerusalem during his presidential campaign, last weeksigned the presidential waiver delaying the move by another six months.

…Despite the signing, however, White House press secretary clarified to reporters on Friday that Trump still intends to move the embassy to Jerusalem and that the move is a question of “when” and not “if”. On Sunday, the United States Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, echoed those comments, telling CNN that Trump still intends to move the embassy to Jerusalem, but he believes that such a move could be a part of the peace initiative he is promoting.

NoTe: Apparently the move has been delayed by every president for 22 years. But Trump is saying, “It’s time to put up or shut up”. I’m anxious to see what happens… because while the United States really doesn’t have a say in much, over there, their opinion as a superpower is of import, and moving the embassy would send a definite message. Exciting times!